The proposal is based on a framework outlined last year by former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, who co-chaired President Obama’s debt commission, and included an increase in the eligibility age for Medicare benefits. Republicans did not offer specific language on raising the age in their proposal Monday, but Bowles has publicly supported raising the age to 67.Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, also discussed gradually raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 during their unsuccessful talks on deficit reduction in 2011.

“What we’re putting forth is a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House and I would hope that they would respond in a timely and responsible way,” Boehner told reporters.

The White House on Monday dismissed a Republican counteroffer to avert the so-called fiscal cliff as failing to “meet the test of balance” by resisting higher tax rates for the wealthy, a point that remains a key hurdle in the impasse over spending and revenues.

Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said in a statement that what congressional Republicans had billed as a “good-faith effort” to move toward compromise contained “nothing new” and offered no specifics on how they’d achieve revenue targets included in the plan.

“Until the Republicans in Congress are willing to get serious about asking the wealthiest to pay slightly higher tax rates, we won’t be able to achieve a significant, balanced approach to reduce our deficit,” Pfeiffer said in the statement, released two hours after details of the GOP offer emerged.

***

“While I’m flattered the Speaker would call something ‘the Bowles plan,’ the approach outlined in the letter Speaker Boehner sent to the President does not represent the Simpson-Bowles plan, nor is it the Bowles plan,” Bowles said in a statement released by the Moment of Truth Project. “In my testimony before the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, I simply took the mid-point of the public offers put forward during the negotiations to demonstrate where I thought a deal could be reached at that time. The Joint Select Committee failed to reach a deal, and circumstances have changed since then. It is up to negotiators to figure out where the middle ground is today.”

Bowles went on to outline what came to be known as the “Bowles plan.” Calling it a plan, though, is probably a bit generous: It was mostly an exercise in taking the Republican position and the Democratic position and dividing by two. …

… That’s the plan Boehner offered the White House on Monday. It’s progress. If you ignore the first nine paragraphs in his letter to President Obama — nine paragraphs in which he vents about the White House and rehashes the virtues of the Ryan budget — it’s a far more centrist proposal than anything Boehner has offered in public before now. But it’s essentially identical to what he offered in his talks with Obama, and to what Bowles offered Republicans during the supercommittee talks. Which is understandable. Those deals must be looking pretty good to Boehner about now.

***

Republicans will cave on the question of raising the tax rate for the highest-income Americans. The only question is whether they do so before or after the government goes over the so-called fiscal cliff. …

The GOP moved an inch in that direction Monday. In a letter to President Obama, Speaker John Boehner and the House Republican leadership proposed $800 billion in new tax revenues, along with about $1.4 trillion in combined cuts to entitlements and discretionary spending. But the GOP still resisted any increase in tax rates, which they “continue to oppose and will not agree to.” …

Doing that would forestall the Democratic attack that the GOP will not bend on tax rates. Instead, it would be the president who’s not bending. Of course, Obama — and many in the media — would find other grounds to attack Republicans. But since the GOP is ultimately going to relent on the top tax rate, why not do it when it has some benefit?

***

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I heard what the Congressman (van Hollen) said and it is clear they are (Democrats) not serious at all about entitlements. which, as the president himself said, that is where the money is. On Social Security he denied that there’s any effect on the deficit at all. …

It’s surprising to me that the president, essentially, who could get revenues he wants from the deductions and exclusions, but insists on rates not for economic reasons but political. He wants to break the backs of Republicans. This is a continuation of his campaign. He thinks he is won it and now he wants to drive a stake through the Republicans. It’s all about the politics; it’s nothing about the economics.

With partisan debate over the “fiscal cliff” becoming more acrimonious by the day, President Obama will play host tonight to House Speaker John Boehner and members of Congress for the season’s first White House holiday reception. …

There are no planned meetings this week between Obama, Boehner or other key figures in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations. The sweeping package of automatic, across-the-board tax hikes and deep spending cuts will take effect in 29 days unless both sides reach a deal.

Why isn’t HotGas posting anything about the GOP Establishment purging fiscal conservatives out of key budget committees? Embarrassed that they can’t explain away why the Republican Party is nothing more than Democrat lite?

Why isn’t HotGas posting anything about the GOP Establishment purging fiscal conservatives out of key budget committees? Embarrassed that they can’t explain away why the Republican Party is nothing more than Democrat lite?

journeymike on December 4, 2012 at 2:09 AM

Experts rarely admit they are wrong because it kind of puts a stink on their future prospects for making money experting this and experting on that.

Cheer up, Spark. :) Only a few short years ago, we would have to burn you. In the middle east, we still would. Couple snips for the idea, since tonight’s slow:

“In a further space, I found that I was descending upon it; and, soon, I sank into a great sea of sullen, red-hued clouds. Slowly, I emerged from these, and there, below me, I saw the stupendous plain, that I had seen from my room in this house that stands upon the borders of the Silences.

“Presently, I landed, and stood, surrounded by a great waste of loneliness. The place was lit with a gloomy twilight that gave an impression of indescribable desolation.

. . . “And then, as I peered, curiously, a new terror came to me; for, away up among the dim peaks to my right, I had descried avast shape of blackness, giant-like. It grew upon my sight. It had an enormous ass-like head, with gigantic ears, and seemed to peer steadfastly down into the arena. There was that about the pose, that gave me the impression of an eternal watchfulness—of having warded that dismal place, through unknown eternities.

. . .“On each side, I looked, and saw more, continually. The mountains were full of strange things—Beast-gods, and Horrors, so atrocious and bestial that possibility and decency deny any further attempt to describe them. And I—I was filled with a terrible sense of overwhelming horror and fear and repugnance; yet, spite of these, I wondered exceedingly. Was there then, afterall, something in the old heathen worship, something more than the mere deifying of men, animals, and elements? The thought gripped me—was there?

. . .“At first, they had appeared to me,just sculptured Monsters, placed indiscriminately among the inaccessible peaks and precipices of the surrounding mountains. Now, as I scrutinised them with greater intentness, my mind began to reach out to fresh conclusions. There was something about them, an indescribable sort of dumb vitality that suggested, to my broadening consciousness, a state of life-in-death—a something that was by no means life, as we understand it; but rather an inhuman form of existence, that well might be likened to a deathless trance—a condition in which it was possible to imagine their continuing, eternally.

Ah, but they are not lifeless are they, as they reflection is animation of the omnipotent Gods who left them for the mere creatures who inhabit this place, saying always that whatever pass we shall remain.

Ah, but they are not lifeless are they, as they reflection is animation of the omnipotent Gods who left them for the mere creatures who inhabit this place, saying always that whatever pass we shall remain.

MarshFox on December 4, 2012 at 3:44 AM

I see your antagonists underestimate you at their own peril, Sir. :)

You gave me an idea. I’m going to go write it down before I crash. And then I’m going to crash. Night MarshFox!

Night, night crew!

Morning, morning crew!

— Happy belated birthday, KJ. :) Hope it was a good one, and may you have many, many more, each better than the last.

With partisan debate over the “fiscal cliff” becoming more acrimonious by the day, President Obama will play host tonight to House Speaker John Boehner and members of Congress for the season’s first White House holiday reception. …

This is where Boehner should politely decline. Just say no.

“Sorry, Mr. President, We don’t have the money for that party. At a time when we may be approaching bankruptcy, we need to get our budget in order before we throw anymore parties.”

Seems like something like this happened last time. Serious budget talks are going on and Boehner Obama invites Boehner on a golf trip.

It’s surprising to me that the president, essentially, who could get revenues he wants from the deductions and exclusions, but insists on rates not for economic reasons but political. He wants to break the backs of Republicans. This is a continuation of his campaign. He thinks he is won it and now he wants to drive a stake through the Republicans. It’s all about the politics; it’s nothing about the economics.

I am not sure the Republicans have all that much to lose.

Someday this gravy train is going off the tracks and when it does all those Obama voters out there are going to try and blame everyone else anyway.

Can we please get off of Mulligan’s Island and just let the chips fall where they may and stick to agreements and let them play out? Because I don’t trust Mulligan, the Skiplet, nor the Professor, nor any of the witless that got us stranded here. Especially since it is a peninsula, not an island, and trying to Mulligan off of it is asinine in extremis.

Obama simply doesn’t want to compromise. He is not the president of this whole country, he is the president for half of this country. His sole purpose is to punish the Republicans and that half of the country that didn’t vote for him. Believe it and all that follows will make perfect sense.

House Republicans on Monday made a fresh deficit-reduction proposal to the White House that calls for $800 billion in increased tax revenue, half of what President Barack Obama has proposed.

The GOP offer was immediately rejected by the White House, but it provides the most detailed statement to date of what Republicans are willing to concede for now. It comes days after the White House put forward its opening bid in the high-stakes deficit talks. With both sides now having made preliminary offers, the parameters for future negotiations between Republicans and the White House are becoming clearer.

Monday’s proposal would make $600 billion in cuts in Medicare and other health programs over 10 years, compared with the $350 billion the president proposed. It would also slow the growth of Social Security benefits, a move most Democrats oppose. The tax-revenue figure is one Republicans say could be achieved without increasing income-tax rates, one of their core objectives.

“What we are putting forth is a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), in a briefing for reporters.

The proposal was made in a letter sent to the White House and signed by Mr. Boehner and other GOP leaders, notably including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), who has been an opponent of any tax increase both in Congress and as Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential running mate. His support will be vital to any final deal.

The offer’s outlines are similar to a budget deal that was emerging in private talks between Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner in mid-2011, when Mr. Boehner agreed to $800 billion in new revenues but Mr. Obama sought more. Those talks collapsed with each side blaming the other for the breakdown. (More…)
==============================================

When congress doesn’t even pretend to plan to balance the budget in ten years, you know we’ve been had.

I have no use for a political party that sees the Democrats’ fiscal policies as a problem by matter of degree. In other words, Boehner & Co. are saying that adding $1T to the national debt every year is unacceptable, but $540B is just fine.

The Democratic Party is actively, deliberately in pursuit of the destruction of this country as it was founded. The Republican Party is feckless, incompetent, politically daft, and ultimately beyond redemption.

Two administration officials confirmed some of the stimulus policies Obama would like to see. The dollar figures are drawn from Congressional Budget Office and Congressional Research Service estimates on past proposals.

* $95 billion to extend the payroll tax cut one year.

* $30 billion to extend unemployment insurance benefits a year.

* $50 billion to fund infrastructure projects like roads and bridges.

* $25 billion for other short-term programs, including extending a tax deduction that lets businesses accelerate depreciation on equipment purchases.

The administration also would include measures to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages.

However, the world “stimulus” is a nonstarter to many Republicans, especially those who credit their 2010 political takeover of the U.S. House to their campaign to end big government, including stimulus.

“At a time when the entire nation recognizes there’s a spending problem, (stimulus) is not serious, it’s absurd,” said Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois, a top House Republican.

Do you want to know why Obama wants some stimulus spending? You’re not going to believe it and you’re certainly not going to believe that he actually uttered it!

He wants $50 billion in stimulus spending investment spending to “offset the drag on the economy that will result from raising the tax rates on the top 2% of taxpayers.”

So, at most, ceterus paribus, returning the tax rates for the top 2% to Clinton levels will allegedly bring approximately $82 billion per year to the Treasury; HOWEVER, in order for the economy not to suffer from this money being taken out of circulation on 15 April, we will need to borrow $50 billion.

Thus, at the end the panacea Obama sold to the gullible Americans in the name of “fairness” will net a whole $32 billion less debt service.

1. Teddy Roosevelt had “The Square Deal.”

2. Woodrow Wilson had “The New Freedom.”

3. Herbert Hoover has “The New Deal (Yet Named).”

“The ideas embodied in the New Deal Legislation were a compilation of those which had come to maturity under Herbert Hoover’s aegis. We all of us owed much to Hoover.”

– Rexford Tugwell, economic adviser to and member of FDR’s Brain Trust, 1946

4. FDR had “The New Deal.” “The economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. These economic royalists. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

5. Harry Truman had “The Fair Deal.”

6. Dwight David Eisenhower had “Dynamic Conservatism.”*

7. JFK had “The New Frontier” and “A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats.”

8. LBJ had “The Great Society.”

9. Nixon had his now-quite-as-good-as-it-sounded “New Federalism.”

10. Ford had “WIN!” (a/k/a Whip Inflation Now!) and “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away.”

11. Carter had “Make Government Competent and Compassionate.”

12. Reagan had “Peace Through Strength”; “Government Is Not The Answer To Every Problem”; “Morning in America”; “Supply-Side Economics”; “Project Socrates”; “Star Wars” (Democrats laughed, but oohed-and-aahed when they watched Iron Dome in action); “Mr Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!.”

13. Bush I had “A Thousand Points of Light,” the successful Persian Gulf War, and the disastrous-for-him “Read my lips, NO NEW TAXES!,” a pledge that he broke, which led to a mild recession that Clinton and Democrats ran around calling the “worst recession since the Great Depression” – Democrats have never met a recession that wasn’t the worst recession since the Great Depression when it occurs during a Republican administration. Anyone remember the recessions Reagan or Bush II inherited? If either had been Democrats, they would have inherited “the worst recession since the Great Depression.” In Reagan’s case, he actually did.

15. George W Bush had “Compassionate Conservatism,” “Education President”; “Uniter, Not Divider”; “America is addicted to oil”; promoted democracy around the world, misadventure in Iraq, too much timidity in Afghanistan, great leadership after 9/11; as much a victim of the mammoth Federal government in its response to Katrina (and a Democratic governor and mayor) as Obama should be if the press were honest considering the royally screwed up response to Hurricane Sandy. Bush’s disapproval rating was probably 20 points higher just as Obama’s approval rating is 20% higher because of blatant media bias.

* “I have just one purpose…and that is to build up a strong progressive Republican Party in this country. If the right wing wants a fight, they are going to get it…before I end up, either this Republican Party will reflect progressivism or I won’t be with them anymore.” (How’d that work out for ya, Ike? You got 2 recessions and left JFK with another!)

1. “I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves.”

– President Calvin Coolidge, inaugural address, 4 March 1925

2. “[As president, I am] one who feels a responsibility for living up to the traditions and maintaining the principles of the Republican Party. Our Constitution guarantees equal rights to all our citizens, without discrimination on account of race or color. I have taken my oath to support that Constitution.”

3. “After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.”

4. “We must humanize the industry, or the system will break down.” He signed into law a budget that kept the tax rates the same, while trimming four million dollars from expenditures, thus allowing the state to retire some of its debt.

5. “Your assertion that the Commissioner was wrong cannot justify the wrong of leaving the city unguarded. That furnished the opportunity; the criminal element furnished the action. There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, any time. … I am equally determined to defend the sovereignty of Massachusetts and to maintain the authority and jurisdiction over her public officers where it has been placed by the Constitution and laws of her people.” (emphasis added) – Telegram from Governor of Massachusetts Calvin Coolidge to Samuel Gompers, 14 September 1919.

6. “The man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.” President Coolidge, Have Faith in Massachusetts

7. “Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.” – President Coolidge, Have Faith in Massachusetts

8. “Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control. Where ever the cause of liberty is making its way, one of its highest accomplishments is the guarantee of the freedom of the press.”

– President Coolidge, 17 January 1925

9. “American ideals do not require to be changed so much as they require to be understood and applied.”

– President Coolidge, 4 July 1924

10. The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.

– President Coolidge, 27 July 1920

11. “One of the greatest perils to an extensive republic is the disregard of individual rights.”

– President Coolidge, 30 June 1924

12. “Patriotism is easy to understand…. It means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.”

– President Coolidge, The Price of Freedom

13. “Wealth is the product of industry, ambition, character and untiring effort. In all experience, the accumulation of wealth means the multiplication of schools, the increase of knowledge, the dissemination of intelligence, the encouragement of science, the broadening of outlook, the expansion of liberty, the widening of culture.

14. “If all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.”

15. “I can find no Constitutional authorization for this bill
(response after vetoing bills).”

16. “We have enough laws already, I don’t need to sign any more
(explanation for taking a vacation for the entire summer).”

17. “The fallacy of the claim that the costs of government are borne by the rich cannot be too often exposed. No system has been devised, I do not think any system could be devised, under which any person living in this country could escape being affected by the cost of our government. It has a direct effect both upon the rate and the purchasing power of wages. It is felt in the price of those prime necessities of existence, food, clothing, fuel and shelter…the continuing costs of public administration can be met in only one way — by the work of the people. The higher they become, the more the people must work for the government. The less they are, the more the people can work for themselves.”

18. “Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.”

19. “Economy is the method by which we prepare today to afford the improvements of tomorrow.”

20. “There is but a fixed quantity of wealth in this country at any fixed time. The only way that we can all secure more of it is to create more.”

21. “I favor the policy of economy not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the government. Every dollar we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form.

22. (After serving 6 years as President, Coolidge was asked why he would not seek re-election), “There’s no chance for job advancement.”

[Had he run for reelection, he would have been the first president to serve 10 years in the office, which is the limit put in place in the 22nd Amendment. It hadn’t occurred to Silent Cal to ignore the two term tradition that had been honoured by the 29 Presidents of the United States of America that had previously served in the 140 years before him.]

I would stay away from the party…just remark “Obama wants to divide the country, he has succeeded, we are trying to negotiate in good faith, and have not received like kind, parties are to celebrate friends commitment to each other, we see none of that, and it saddens me that he puts parties before country.”